The Government has warned that it will challenge the British government before the European Court and, if necessary, the United Nations, following a decision to expand nuclear reprocessing at Sellafield.
The British Environment Secretary, Ms Margaret Beckett, after months of examination, yesterday formally approved the opening of a £460 million mixed oxide (MOX) plant at the British Nuclear Fuels Limited complex in Cumbria.
The Minister of State for Public Enterprise, Mr Joe Jacob, said the decision was unacceptable, particularly in light of the September 11th terrorist attacks in the United States. "I find it difficult to comprehend. I would have considered that the whole rationale for this energy source would have been undergoing a serious reappraisal," Mr Jacob said.
A legal challenge already under way before the OSPAR Convention, an international environmental body comprising 14 North Atlantic nations, is "now largely irrelevant", he conceded.
Ireland had intended to argue before OSPAR that Britain had broken international law by having no justification for the MOX plant and by its refusal to hand over sensitive documentation.
"We specifically asked that no decision to proceed on the MOX decision is completely contrary to that request. We feel quite affronted," he complained.
Besides Ireland, five other OSPAR-member countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, support Sellafield's shutdown and its French counterpart at Cap la Hague.
Now, however, the Government intends to take the same case before the high-profile European Court. "I discussed it with the Taoiseach. He is of the same view as I am," said Mr Jacob.
Several months of grace remain before the MOX plant would go into daily use. "I will be actively using that time to oversee the completion and processing of all legal options." The United Nations offered another avenue, he said.
This possibility will be discussed between the Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell, and senior Public Enterprise officials.
Sellafield has been a constant sore between Dublin and London. Following years of complaint, Britain agreed to cut Sellafield's Irish Sea discharges to almost nothing by 2020. The MOX plant was built in 1996, but it failed to secure a licence after the British government became concerned about the falsification of records by BNFL staff covering exports to Japan.
Mixed oxide fuel is a blend of plutonium and uranium which has been extracted from nuclear fuel rods already burnt in Britain, Japan and Europe. BNFL argues that the MOX plant will cut the world's plutonium stockpile.
The decision to licence it was regarded as inevitable after consultants said last month that it would be cheaper to open than to mothball. The director of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, Dr Frank Barnby, last month warned that it was inevitable that terrorists would eventually acquire plutonium.
Fine Gael TD Ms Deirdre Clune said Ireland's agriculture and tourist industries, which are dependent on a clean environmental image, could be "seriously undermined" by yesterday's decision.
"It is time for Bertie Ahern to stop bluffing and start acting to halt this monstrous development. Four and a half years of posturing by Bertie Ahern and Joe Jacob have come to nothing," she said.
Green Party TD Mr Trevor Sargent said he was appalled. "It is not just grossly irresponsible, it is an act of madness. Sellafield should be decommissioning not expanding."
The British Prime Minister, Mr Blair, was prepared to open the MOX plant despite his fears that international terrorists could get their hands on nuclear weapons.
A large grouping of environmental organisations, including Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace, condemned the British move as unlawful and threatened to go to the British courts.
